Fire and Snow
by MissDevon
Summary: AU: a different way the events of the Hospital fire, the blizzard, and Robin's postpartum could have gone
1. Chapter 1

Fire and Snow

He had known the signs and denied them the same way she had. He had spoken in euphemisms about the help they needed, but they laughed and teased him. The former confirmed bachelor would not be up for 2 AM feedings as opposed to his new, having wanted to be a mother forever wife.

But he had.

He was the one who was doing everything.

Rocking his daughter to sleep.

Bathing her.

Waking up and walking the floors with her while his wife was slipping deeper and deeper into Postpartum Depression and everyone made excuses for her. The perfect girl, the perfect AIDS activist turned neurologist could not be succumbing to Postpartum, not after she had dealt so well with all the tragedies in her life.

And by denying it another tragedy had occurred.

While he was saving the hospital and the world he had let down his baby.

His wife had taken her out in the snow.  
Abandoned the car.  
Let her go.  
Let her die.

He had saved the world but lost his own.

And now, he couldn't look at her.  
Couldn't talk to her.  
Wouldn't comfort her.  
And he was once again the insensitive bad guy.

So he sat alone in the church as everyone took her side and helped her grieve.  
Grieve for a little girl she had killed because of an illness he couldn't get her to admit to having.

No one cared what he was going through.  
About his loss.

He was only the father.  
She was the mother who had had it all and in a tragic occurrence had lost it.  
If only the hospital hadn't been closed.  
If only it hadn't been a blizzard.  
That's what they all said.

All he wanted to say was: "if only you admitted you were sick. If only you weren't so stupid as to leave the car. To let the carrier go. To drop her. Why couldn't you, for once, act like a mother and hold onto our daughter?"

But he wouldn't.  
Once more he would stay quiet.  
Let her remain perfect.  
Take the hit for the team.  
That was his job.

But in a couple of months it wouldn't be anymore.

He would walk away with his grief and pain.

Divorce her and continue to play the bad guy as he always did.

For beautiful, perfect Robin.

She could keep her halo.  
He just wanted to hold his angel one last time and never would.

But, he'd find away for her to pay. After all, while she had held his life and heart in her arms and let them crash down, Patrick Drake held her professional future in his and he would make sure that that life fell down, that he took away the one thing that meant something to her just like she had to him.


	2. Chapter 2

She was cold. Chilled to the bone cold even in the warmth of the church. Since that night she hadn't been able to get warm. Hadn't stopped wishing they hadn't found her--- had left her there to freeze to death like her little girl had.

She was tired of the platitudes and rationalizations that fell from their lips. They didn't matter. The one she needed to hear that he understood from would never say it.  
She saw the blame in his eyes.  
Blame mixed with an unspeakable grief. A grief she wasn't so sure she shared, but one she did know she had caused.

Oh, she was putting on a good show.  
She knew she had to.  
No new mother wouldn't mourn for their so wanted miracle child.

And she knew what to say.  
How to act.  
When to cry.

It was all done on cue.

A shudder here.  
A tear there.

But it wasn't real because she was too cold to care.  
Too cold to make them understand that they were all wrong--- it hadn't been an unspeakable accident.

She had known what she was doing.  
Knew it was stupid to drive a new car she had only driven once before on roads covered by ice and snow.  
Knew that she should've stayed in the warm car until help--- help that was only a 9-1-1 call away--- came.  
Knew she was walking away from the road instead of towards it.  
Knew she should've dressed Emma warmer. Had her wrapped in more blankets. Kept her in the car seat or drawn her to her chest under her own coat.

But she hadn't done what she knew was right.

And why? Because she was tired of it?  
Tired of Emma's constant wailing.  
Tired of not being the perfect mother she had dreamt of being.  
Tired of watching others do what she couldn't manage.  
Tired of her dream becoming a nightmare.  
Tired of her own child. . .

So she let her fall.

Let her illusions go when she allowed herself to collapse a few feet away, ready to give up because she wasn't perfect anymore.

Only they had found her too soon and Emma too late.

So here she was, the formerly perfect Dr. Robin Scorpio-Drake cold as ice waiting for the funeral scene to play out so she could let down her façade. Come up with someway to place the blame on someone else.

There was no way she had PPD.  
_She_ wasn't that person.  
She wasn't Carly.  
Carly who had just walked away from Michael--- no she had held her baby until her weight had become too much for her to bear.

Until she dropped her in the snow one cold night.  
And she was still cold.  
Ice cold.  
Cold enough to shatter; only she couldn't.

Not here.

Not now.

Not ever.

Because perfect people didn't shatter.

And that was why, she'd eventually say, that her eyes shimmered with cold and not tears of grief. Why she forged on and didn't look back.

Why, when the right amount of time passed, she'd leave Patrick, who would be buried under his imperfect grief.

She'd never allow them to know how cold she was, because Robin Scorpio was a survivor.

She was warmth and compassion.  
Never imperfect.  
Never cold.


End file.
